Europeans: Please join rally for CSS

[DMB]

The National Secular Society from the UK and Libre Pensée of France are jointly organising a gathering to be held in Paris on 6th December to call for separation of church and state in Europe.

The joint declaration is available in various languages here. (http://membres.lycos.fr/librepensee/)

If you are interested, please contact enquiries@secularism.org.uk or write to NSS Paris Event, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL in UK, or La Libre Pensée10-12, rue des Fossés St Jacques 75005 Paris in France.

I think this should be good fun, as well as making a contribution to the debate that otherwise is going to be won by the Vatican lobbyists.

[StrictSeparationist]

It's a nice manifesto, but this worries me:

We unconditionally support secularized, neutral governments that leave each individual free to choose and express his or her own beliefs, without any governmental or social coercion.

While freedom of (and from) religion is one important aspect of any government that seeks to preserve liberty, it is most certainly not the only one, and quite possibly not the most important one. Unconditional support for any government that preserves strict religious neutrality would confer a distinction upon some rather unjust regimes. There are other factors to consider in giving one's support to a particular government.

[DMB]

StrictSeparationist: Why don't you email your concerns to the NSS? I'm sure they'd be glad of your input.

[Yangja Isuko]

i thought we allready had it.

[DMB]

Originally posted by Yangja Isuko
i thought we allready had it.
It varies from country to country. Many countries have either an official church or state support of churches. The Vatican is lobbying energetically to get xianity into the new European constitution.

[Yangja Isuko]

sure, but nobody really *cares*, do they? even if there's an official mention of it somewhere, it has no bearing on us here in real life.

[Buffman]

Yangja Isuko

Neither did a fascist Germany or Italy, did they?

[Alan G]

[i]Originally posted by Unconditional support for any government that preserves strict religious neutrality would confer a distinction upon some rather unjust regimes. There are other factors to consider in giving one's support to a particular government. [/B]

for what its worth, I read that part to mean that they support the principle of having a seperation, not that any government who did so would be unconditionally supported. that would be as bad as the Vatican supporting majority Catholic countries when doing evil things, *cough* Spain *cough*